The entry hall was dark and empty as she started down the stairs. The first room she intended to search was Morebright’s reception room. It was the room in which she and Bridgewater had married, which gave her a passable explanation for wanting to be there should anyone discover her, though she did wonder if women truly felt such a connection to the location of their vows that they would wish to revisit it just to reexperience the happiness of the time. She’d heard a clanswoman of Abby’s say it once after a luncheon Abby threw in the ruins of the chapel on her land, and Undine had been so surprised, she’d thought the woman drunk, but Abby had insisted no liquor had been served.
Undine would certainly never be so sentimental about her quick ceremony to the loutish Bridgewater, who’d spent the entire time smiling at her like an addle-brained fool.
She stopped, horrified.
Oh God, do I look at Michael the same way?
She turned back and forth until she spotted the silvered glass of a sconce at the bottom of the steps and ran to it. She peered at her reflection and thought of that first kiss.
Great skies, I look just as addle-brained.
There’s a reason to be glad he’s gone, she thought firmly, though, she considered with a sigh, she hadn’t quite convinced herself.
She padded quickly across the marble floor. The footmen were making their nightly rounds. The reception room was just past the dining hall. She hadn’t been in the house long enough to figure out where Morebright did his paperwork, but the reception room was where he’d met with Bridgewater.
She pulled the ring of keys from her pocket, careful to hold them still. She gauged the size of the keyholes on the double doors and then poked gingerly through the selection of keys in her hand. Most were too large. The three smaller ones were about equal size. She reached for the smallest one, but the movement overbalanced the ring and the thing fell to the ground with a horrendous clatter that seemed to echo down every hallway.
She bent instantly for them.
“Lady Bridgewater?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin. She straightened and stepped forward so that her skirts covered the keys. It was an older, dark-eyed footman.
“May I offer my congratulations on your marriage?” he said, catching the handles and swinging both doors inward so that she might enter.
They weren’t even locked.
“You may,” she said, producing one of her famed addle-brained smiles. “Thank you.”
He bowed and waited for her to enter. “It must feel like a great change.”
Aye. Like I’ve been thrown in jail and am being readied to be burned at the stake.
She put her foot on the keys and slid them into the room, coughing repeatedly to cover the noise. The footman, light-footed for his age, had his hair pulled into a ribbon. She leaned forward to look into the man’s eyes. It wasn’t Michael, but she checked again, just to be sure.
“Is everything all right, milady?” the man said, uncomfortable under the close gaze.
“Oh, aye. I thought you looked familiar. I dinna see well without my spectacles, which I am loath to wear.”
“Let me remedy that.” He gathered a candle from a table, lit it from an entryway sconce, and placed it in a nearby pricket. “Will that be enough, or shall I light more?”
“’Twill be sufficient. I only wished… Well, ’tis a bit embarrassing. I only wished to sit here for a moment and remember the ceremony.”
“A momentous time.” He smiled. “My Mary’s gone now, but we often visited the chapel on the estate where we said our vows. I always said that quarter hour alone made the whole year worthwhile.”
The reception room had a settee and two stuffed chairs as well as numerous tables, shelves, and books. There was no desk, nor any obvious place to hide something. On the wall, a large mural had been painted of the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, in which the English army had routed the Scots not far from here. And if she remembered correctly… Aye, there he was. Captain Simon Morebright leading his company into battle. The muralist had made it easy to recognize him. Not only was he carrying his family’s flag, but he was also by far the largest, handsomest, and most heroic-looking of the men portrayed on the canvas, sitting astride a horse, saddlebags at his side, in a bright pool of sunlight, no doubt indicating God’s favor. She rolled her eyes. The only thing missing was a contingent of angels led by Gabriel and his trumpet circling Morebright’s head and a sign that read “Here’s the hero.”
If this is what Morebright put in his reception room, she forbore to think what he’d had installed in his bedchamber.
“Do you like it?” the servant asked.
“It’s something I shall not soon forget.”
“His lordship had it commissioned a few years ago.”
“He did? I would have guessed it to be a gift from his regiment, to thank him for his extraordinary bravery in the defense of our country.”
The servant lowered his head, providing the humility he imagined his master would have displayed. “No, milady. It actually hides a door to the dining hall.”
“Indeed?” She stared at the figures, looking for the outline of a door. It wasn’t until she picked up the candle and drew even closer that the outline became visible in the trunks of three closely set oaks, which, of course, grew nowhere near Bothwell Bridge.
“I am amazed.”
He opened the door, and there was the dining hall and its long line of arched windows. She felt Michael’s presence again but knew it was only the night, the moon, and her regret coming together to defeat her.
“There are times,” the servant said with a smile, “when his lordship finds it more convenient to adjourn to the dining room than to meet those who have come to call unexpectedly.”
Which suggested, Undine thought, that he spent time in the reception room alone.
“I’d enjoy the same thing myself every now and again,” she said. “Perhaps I can induce a muralist to come to Bridgewater’s family seat.”
“Coldstream now, is it not? Or will you be returning to the estate in Cumbria?”
She would be doing neither, partly because no earthly power could induce her to retreat even farther from the borderlands with John Bridgewater, but partly because she knew events were counting down quickly to a time when she would have to leave to save herself. She and Michael had stolen the letter from Bridgewater’s box, and the moment Bridgewater opened it, his not yet fully formed suspicions about her would take on a very concrete shape. If she found anything here to take, then Morebright would also be on the verge of suspecting her. In addition, she knew the spell Bridgewater was under was fading. She’d already seen signs of its wildly shifting effects. And last, but far from least, the ring on her left hand meant she was now Bridgewater’s chattel to do with as he pleased, and a man like Bridgewater was not going to let a situation like that go unleveraged for long.
She shook off the horror of such a thought. “Oh, I don’t know what John wishes to do next concerning a home,” she said. “I expect he’ll surprise me.”
The servant nodded, and as their conversation was at its natural end, he began to back out, catching each door to close them.
“Wait,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Tom, milady.”
“Tom, I wouldn’t want anyone to know I’m being so silly. Not even John.”
He bent his head and the whisper of an approving smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “As you wish.”
The instant Tom closed the doors, she scooped the keys off the floor and began to look around. The table between the chairs had a small drawer but no lock. She looked anyway and found a folded broadsheet, a pair of scissors, a handheld lens and a number of other odds and ends, but nothing of interest, not even the broadsheet, which was four years old and concerned the necessity of approving the cost of a new toll bridge in Glasgow.
She paced the perimeter of the room and peered at the items on the shelves—porcelain doves, a box of quills, a set of cups for coffee, a small painting of Morebright’s sons and late wife. Nothing looked like something the rebels would find useful.
The door in the mural was intriguing, though. Of course, there was every reason to believe a nobleman would have callers he didn’t want to see, and a secret passageway provided a very handy escape. But an escape to the dining hall? Surely a man as manipulative and scheming as Morebright could have thought of something more original—stairs to his lover’s bedchamber or an escape route to the outside, perhaps.
She opened the door again—one had to push it, as there was no knob to pull—and examined it. It was thicker than most doors, since it needed to be as thick as the wall, and she ran her hands along the sides and top, but she didn’t feel any gaps that would suggest a hidden panel. She did the same to the frame around the door. It wasn’t quite wide enough to offer a secret passage—unless you were a very thin child, perhaps—and it didn’t appear to offer any secret hiding places either.
She closed the door again, marveling at the precision between the wall and the door’s front. She most certainly wouldn’t have noticed it without Tom’s help.
Heaving a sigh, she looked again at the key ring. There were eight keys—five large and three small. One was undoubtedly for a money box somewhere and another for where silver plate was stored. A third would be for the room in which wine and whiskey were stored. The largest was probably for the house itself. That left four keys unaccounted for. Where in this place would four more locked rooms or boxes be that Morebright himself would take a personal interest in?
She gathered the pricket again to examine the keys nearer the window. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them. Some were more intricately fashioned than others, no doubt done to match either a highly stylized box or lock plate. All were brass. None had any markings to indicate what they were for or who made them.
She was just about to blow the candle out when she thought she noticed an odd ridge in the mural. Not near the door. Closer to the other side. She put her hand on the wall and ran it along the mural as she walked, intrigued. The surface was varied—a result of both the application of paint and the texture of the walls—but there were no seams. Until she reached a ridge.
Bringing the pricket closer, she found a ridge and another to match it running down the edges of Morebright’s saddle bag in the painting. With heart beating fast, she followed the closest ridge up the wall till its endpoint and found another line running between the two ridges. Digging her fingernail in that, she managed to get a small door to open a bit, but it slipped back. She put down the pricket and tried again using both hands. Success. A small door, almost a shelf, angled open. Inside was a silver box about the height and width of a servant’s tray with an ornate lock and handle. A shiver of excitement went through her.
She grabbed the case and sized up the lock. The first of the smaller keys didn’t fit, but the second did. She opened the lid and found a sheath of papers. A number were letters Morebright had received from others, but at least three were from Bridgewater.
Undine quickly scanned the first one. It appeared to be an answer to an entreaty from Morebright to do more in the borderlands than his command would allow.
Simon, stepping beyond the orders I’ve been given is possible but would have to be undertaken with extreme caution… As you know, I am entrusted to make decisions when certain unexpected situations arise… The “situation” will have to be carefully chosen.
This was all she’d need to get the vote defeated! If the Scots learned of the maneuverings of one of the highest-ranking officers in England’s northern armies, it would be deeply embarrassing to the Scottish lords who’d already formed a coalition with England on the treaty. All it would take was to change the minds of a couple dozen lords and the treaty vote would fail. But more important, if she made the contents of this letter known, Bridgewater would undoubtedly be removed from his command. She knew General Silverbridge, the officer in Northumberland to whom Bridgewater reported, or at least, she knew his reputation. He was a fair and honest man. If she found something that implicated Bridgewater, Silverbridge would act.
She didn’t have time to thoroughly read the correspondence here. She needed to get out of the house, and then get the story to one of the broadsheet publishers in Edinburgh, who could get it distributed. The letters themselves would have to be hidden. They were more valuable and dangerous than gold. As long as they were on her person, she’d be in extreme danger. The question now was, did she take the time to pack her powders and elixirs, or did she walk straight into the night?
She had no time to consider the choices. She heard footsteps and thrust the papers deep into her bodice, put the box on the shelf, and closed the small door hidden in the mural.
When the room’s door opened, Undine turned from window.
Bridgewater started.
“There you are,” she said, and ran to his side to kiss him.